


Boys' Night

by inlovewithnight



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-01
Updated: 2005-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:05:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight





	Boys' Night

Angel slumped a little lower on the couch. "I'm confused."

Gunn rolled his eyes and reached for his glass. "Nothing new about _that_."

"Hey!"

"Sorry, sorry." Gunn grinned down at the remote control.

"I just have a question, that's all."

"Shoot." He frowned at his glass- nothing but ice left. He made a mental note that Angel didn't get to mix the drinks anymore.

"Well, two questions, really."

"Still can't help you unless you actually ask them."

"First of all...why does he have to _yell_ all the time?" Angel winced as the man in the commercial thrust a bottle of miracle product toward the camera and bellowed about its virtues at the top of his lungs. "I mean, it's TV. We could hear him just fine if he talked in a normal voice. It's not like the days of streetcorner barkers, you know..."

"Ease up, Blast From The Past," Gunn said, dumping his ice into a potted plant and reaching for the whiskey bottle. "It's just his thing. It's why we've got a volume control."

"Yeah, but then you have to turn it back up when the show comes back...it's really inconvenient." Angel looked genuinely aggravated. Gunn rolled his eyes.

"What's the other question?"

"How does orange oil help get anything clean? I mean, when you spill orange juice on the floor, it just gets sticky...it doesn't..." He trailed off at Gunn's look of patient disgust. "What?"

"Don't ever question commercials that run at two in the morning, man." Gunn shook his head. "I guess Wes' date must've ended up pretty hot after all, if he's not home by now."

"It's not a date." Angel crunched his ice happily, and Gunn winced.

"How do you figure?"

"I heard him telling Fred. He said it about five times- just a business dinner, not a date. I guess the woman's a potential client."

"You need to get out more." Gunn shook his head. "Business dinners don't last till two AM."

"Remember what happened the last time I 'got out?'" Angel asked pointedly. At Gunn's puzzled sideways glance, he prompted, "Darla?"

"Oh! Right!" Gunn shook his head and took a sip of his drink. "On second thought, stay clueless."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the SportsCenter highlight reel for the third time that night. At the next commercial, Angel glanced around the apartment. "Well, they must've gone back to her place, since we're...um, here."

"I guess." Gunn shrugged. "Wes could use a few more lamps in this place. Guy who reads as much as he does, living in a cave like this? No wonder he gets headaches."

"Wes gets headaches?"

"Well, yeah. Nothing like Cordy's, but, you know, eye strain."

Vampires didn't pout, but Gunn couldn't quite think of another word for the look on Angel's face. "He should've said something. I could-"

"What, add it to the health plan we don't have?" Gunn grinned and dodged the throw pillow Angel swung at him. "Besides, Wes is the boss, remember? His job to worry about that stuff."

"Well, it is hard to find one that'll cover rashes caused by contact with Gra'nak demon blood," Angel said philosophically.

"You checked?"

"Yeah, but I'm not very good with the paperwork stuff." He swirled the liquid in his glass and squinted at the screen. "How did he miss that shot?"

"He doesn't have vampire reflexes." Gunn swung his feet up onto Wes' coffee table and frowned as the clip of the Lakers blowing a three-point lead came onto the screen again. "What were Cordy and Fred doing tonight?"

"Renting movies, I think. Everything Tom Cruise did in the last five years, and an introduction to Russell Crowe."

Gunn sat up straight and stared at him. "They're watching _Gladiator_? And they didn't invite us?"

"I asked if we could come," Angel assured him, "but Cordy said it was a girls' night, and that even though it's hard to tell sometimes, we don't qualify."

Gunn flopped back against the couch. "Harsh."

"Well, but it's a good thing," Angel said, "because if we weren't at the office, we would've missed this call about the vampires in Reseda." He pulled the notes from his pocket and studied them. "But if Wes doesn't get here soon, there's no point in going till tomorrow night."

Gunn glanced at the door. "Think he's going to be mad that we let ourselves in?"

"Well, he should get better locks. That was just ridiculously easy."

The highlight reel went by for the fourth time. In the middle of a college football montage, the door opened and Wes came in, leading a laughing blonde by the hand.

Angel and Gunn got to their feet and smiled pleasantly.

"What in God's name are you doing here?" Wes demanded through clenched teeth.

"Wesley, don't be rude," the woman said, stepping around him and offering her hand to Angel and Gunn in turn. "I'm Christy...Wes, you didn't mention that you live with your...brother?" She glanced from Angel to Wes and raised her eyebrows.

"He's not my brother," Wes muttered, checking the locks and shooting a glare at Angel when he saw how they'd been popped. "They're just some friends. From work."

"Oh." Christy nodded. "Do your friends let themselves in here often?"

"I don't know." Wes folded his arms over his chest and scowled at them. "Do you?"

"Of course not!" Angel said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "But you weren't answering your phone, and we were looking for you."

Christy turned to stare at Wes, and Gunn hurriedly tried to redirect the conversation. "Because we got a call at the office! We don't usually, you know, supervise his dates."

"Oh, good," she said faintly, but she still glanced at the door. If looks could kill, Wesley would've been looking for a place to hide a body, and a Dustbuster.

"What was the call about, gentlemen?" he asked stiffly. Angel pulled the note from his pocket and held it out. "We'll have to deal with it tomorrow," Wes said after looking it over. "We'll never make it out there by sunrise. Thank you." He opened the door and looked pointedly at the hallway. "Good night."

As they shuffled past him, Wes leaned forward and said "I'll be calling the locksmith in the morning."

"Good idea," Angel said, "because seriously, Wes, those locks are just..." The door slammed in his face.

"Okay," Gunn said after a moment, glancing up and down the hallway. "Now what? Night's still young."

Angel blinked. "Not really."

"Yeah, okay." He sighed. "We could go by 7-Eleven. Get a Slurpee."

Angel's eyes brightened a little. "We can't make it to Reseda tonight, but there's got to be something around here we could kill."

"Hey, man, you've got the vamp metabolism going for you, but I've been drinking, remember?"

"Oh." Angel kicked at the carpet. "Well."

Gunn clapped his hands as an idea occurred to him. "I've got a copy of _Gladiator_ at my place."

Angel grinned. "Really? Then what are we waiting for?"  



End file.
